The Swede Bo Hansson is a man of many talents: a guitarist, and a composer of a wide range of music in folk and jazz idioms. Writing choral music is a more recent development for him but its roots run deep, back to the days of his childhood when he sang as a treble in his local choir. He has observed that ‘the human voice is the closest you can come to your soul’ and in that search he writes music that demands much of its performers in its sustained intensity of sound, a penchant for a cappella and a fresh way with word-setting even in the most established of texts, as in the darting energy of the Gloria from the Missa Brevis.
Hansson's music shows off the choir's strengths to great advantage … it is their confident and committed performance that warrants a recommendation from the objective listener (Gramophone)
This marvellous disc … not only pays tribute to the Swedish composer's fresh, melodic, choral writing but also to the uniformly excellent vocal ensemble at Royal Holloway under their inspirational director, Rupert Gough. On the basis of this disc, these performers are wholly inside Hansson's sonic world … highly recommended (Choir & Organ)
The music on this disc is consistently good; Hansson’s beginnings as an arranger of folk and popular song have helped him develop gifts as a writer of contemporary choral music that really does exert a grip … the musical processes are sophisticated but always easy to follow. Endless border is a compact, seven-minute marvel … Rupert Gough’s young choir make a glowing sound, recorded in an acoustic which gives them plenty of air but never clouds the detail (TheArtsDesk.com)
Gough creates a selection of choral musical delights...each with exquisite treatment of text and perfect performance of sensitive musical nuances’ Critic’s Pick: International Choral Magazine
Hyperion, 2011
Douai Abbey, Berkshire
Producer: Adrian Peacock
Engineer: David Hinitt
Released: March 2012
